Species XXV. ANAS LABRADOBA. 



PIED DUCK. 



[Plate LXIX. Fig. 6.] 



Arct. Zool. No. 488.— Lath. Syn. in., p. 497.* 



This is rather a scarce species on our coasts, and is never met with 

 on fresh-water lakes or rivers. It is called by some gunners the Sand 

 Shoal Duck, from its habit of frequenting sand bars. Its principal 

 food appears to be shell fish, which it procures by diving. The flesh is 

 dry, and partakes considerably of the nature of its food. It is only 

 seen here during winter ; most commonly early in the month of March 

 a few are observed in our market. Of their particular manners, place, 

 or mode of breeding nothing more is known. Latham observes that a 

 pair in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks were brought from Labrador. 

 Having myself had frequent opportunities of examining both sexes of 

 these birds, I find that, like most others, they are subject when young 

 ■to a progressive change of color. The full plumaged male is as follows : 

 length twenty inches, extent twenty-nine inches ; the base of the bill, 

 and edges of both mandibles for two-thirds of their length, are of a pale 

 orange color, the rest black, towards the extremity it widens a little in 

 the manner of the Shovellers, the sides there having the singularity of 

 being only a soft, loose, pendulous skin ; irides dark hazel ; head and 

 half of the neck white, marked along the crown to the hind-head with 

 a stripe of black ; the plumage of the cheeks is of a peculiar bristly 

 nature at the points, and round the neck passes a collar of black, which 

 spreads over the back, rump, and tail coverts ; below this color the 

 upper part of the breast is white, extending itself over the whole scapu- 

 lars, wing coverts, and secondaries ; the primaries, lower part of the 

 breast, whole belly, and vent are black ; tail pointed, and of a blackish 

 hoary color ; the fore part of the legs and ridges of the toes pale whitish 

 ash ; hind part the same bespattered with blackish, webs black ; the 

 edges of both mandibles are largely pectinated. In young birds, the 

 whole of the white plumage is generally strongly tinged with a yellowish 

 cream color ; in old males these parts are pure white, with the exception 

 sometimes of the bristly pointed plumage of the cheeks, which retains 



* Anas Labradora, Gmel. Syst. i., p. 526, No. 97. — Ind. Orn. p. 861, No. 74. — 

 Le Canard Jansen, PL Enl. 955. — Buff, ix., p. 174. 



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